Tuesday, 15 June 2010

The Comica/Observer/Cape Graphic Short Fiction prize 2010

The deadline is 6th October 2010, with a first prize of £1000 and a runners-up prize of £250. The competition, now in its fourth year, usually creates a bit of a buzz on the British comics scene and is a good opportunity for aspiring cartoonists. The winner will see their strip published in the Observer Review (the arts section of broadsheet newspaper, The Observer), while the runner-up will have their work published at the Guardian website and on the Vintage website.

The winner (and the runners-up) of the 2008 competition can be found here. The winner (as well as the runner-up) of the 2009 competition, meanwhile, are here.

"I'm not proud of this but, for years and years, I thought that graphic novels were only read by geeky guys with long hair, fetid bedrooms and a serious fondness for thrash. Yes, I had read Maus by Art Spiegelman (just in case you don't know, it tells the story of Spiegelman's father, Vladek, a Polish Jew; Spiegelman draws the Jews as mice and the Nazis as cats). And I thought it was amazing, of course. But still, it seemed to me to be one of a kind. After all, graphic novels are basically comics, aren't they? And there's only so much a writer can do with a comic, and only so much pleasure a reader (at least a grown-up reader) can take in one."

And, finally, last year, the Forbidden Planet International blog, did a series of posts on the various 'non-winners' of the 2009 that had posted their strips online. These are well worth reading and can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

The site downthetubes.net, which began publishing in 1999, is edited by John Freeman whose credits include editor of Doctor Who Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, Star Wars Magazine, and Marvel UK titles such as Overkill, Death's Head II, Warheads and others. He's currently editor of the upcoming Strip Magazine for Print Media Productions.

About the Writers:

• Matthew Badham has written features for Judge Dredd: The Megazine, the Forbidden Planet International blog and more

• Jeremy Briggs contributes news, reviews, interviews and historical articles on British comics. He is a guest writer on Steve Holland's UK comics history blog, Bear Alley, and has written for Comics International, TV Zone, Spaceship Away and Omnivistascope.

• David Hailwood has written comic strips for various publications, including TOXIC, Accent UK, Bulletproof and Futurequake. He also writes comedy material for TV, and regularly contributes to the Temple APA (a showcase for UK comic writers and artists).

• Andy Luke is a writer who draws: he's s created the eponymous Andy Luke's Comic Book, Gran, Absence: a comic about epilepsy, Hold the Phones, It's Alex Jones, and graphic novel, The Watch Thief. He's written about comics too, mainly for Bugpowder.com, and has been involved with the Caption comics festival in Oxford. He currently lives in Belfast with a large box of pasta and a 7ft tall cigarette, and can be found online at http://andy-luke.com and http://awriterwhodraws.com

• Ian Wheeler is a freelance writer who also edited the highly-acclaimed British comics fanzine Eagle Flies Again.